round. That they can assume other aerial bodies,
all manner of shapes at their pleasures, appear in
what likeness they will themselves, that they are
most swift in motion, can pass many miles in an instant,
and so likewise [1131]transform bodies of others into
what shape they please, and with admirable celerity
remove them from place to place; (as the Angel did
Habakkuk to Daniel, and as Philip the deacon was carried
away by the Spirit, when he had baptised the eunuch;
so did Pythagoras and Apollonius remove themselves
and others, with many such feats) that they can represent
castles in the air, palaces, armies, spectrums, prodigies,
and such strange objects to mortal men’s eyes,
[1132]cause smells, savours, &c., deceive all the
senses; most writers of this subject credibly believe;
and that they can foretell future events, and do many
strange miracles. Juno’s image spake to
Camillus, and Fortune’s statue to the Roman matrons,
with many such. Zanchius, Bodine, Spondanus,
and others, are of opinion that they cause a true
metamorphosis, as Nebuchadnezzar was really translated
into a beast, Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt;
Ulysses’ companions into hogs and dogs, by Circe’s
charms; turn themselves and others, as they do witches
into cats, dogs, hares, crows, &c. Strozzius Cicogna
hath many examples, lib. iii. omnif. mag. cap.
4 and 5, which he there confutes, as Austin likewise
doth, de civ. Dei lib. xviii. That
they can be seen when and in what shape, and to whom
they will, saith Psellus, Tametsi nil tale viderim,
nec optem videre, though he himself never saw them
nor desired it; and use sometimes carnal copulation
(as elsewhere I shall [1133]prove more at large) with
women and men. Many will not believe they can
be seen, and if any man shall say, swear, and stiffly
maintain, though he be discreet and wise, judicious
and learned, that he hath seen them, they account
him a timorous fool, a melancholy dizzard, a weak fellow,
a dreamer, a sick or a mad man, they contemn him,
laugh him to scorn, and yet Marcus of his credit told
Psellus that he had often seen them. And Leo
Suavius, a Frenchman, c. 8, in Commentar. l. 1.
Paracelsi de vita longa, out of some Platonists,
will have the air to be as full of them as snow falling
in the skies, and that they may be seen, and withal
sets down the means how men may see them; Si irreverberatus
oculis sole splendente versus caelum continuaverint
obtutus, &c., [1134]and saith moreover he tried
it, praemissorum feci experimentum, and it was
true, that the Platonists said. Paracelsus confesseth
that he saw them divers times, and conferred with
them, and so doth Alexander ab [1135]Alexandro, “that
he so found it by experience, when as before he doubted
of it.” Many deny it, saith Lavater, de
spectris, part 1. c. 2, and part 2. c. 11,
“because they never saw them themselves;”
but as he reports at large all over his book, especially
c. 19. part 1, they are often seen and heard,